News Releases

Expert on Critical Race Theory to Speak at Ithaca College

ITHACA, NY — Kimberlé Crenshaw, recognized as one of the founders of Critical Race Theory, will discuss “Intersectionality in the Age of Post-Racialism” at Ithaca College on Friday, Oct. 26. Her free public talk, which is sponsored by the Ithaca College Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity, will take place at 7 p.m. in Textor 102.

Critical Race Theory is an academic discipline focused upon the application of critical theory — an examination of society and culture — to the intersection of race, law and power. Crenshaw’s body of legal scholarship on race has had enormous influence, and her groundbreaking work on “intersectionality” was influential in the drafting of the equality clause in the South African Constitution.

Crenshaw was the coeditor of “Critical Race Theory: Key Writings That Formed the Movement” and coauthor of “Words that Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech and the First Amendment.” She authored the background paper on race and gender discrimination for the United Nations World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) and coordinated efforts by nongovernmental organizations to ensure the inclusion of gender in the WCAR Conference Declaration.

Crenshaw serves as the faculty director of the Critical Race Studies program at UCLA Law School. In 1996 she cofounded the African American Policy Forum to house a variety of projects designed to deliver research-based strategies to better advance social inclusion. She has served as a member of the National Science Foundation’s committee to research violence against women and has consulted with leading foundations, social justice organizations and corporations to advance their race and gender equity initiatives.

Twice named Professor of the Year at UCLA Law School, Crenshaw has been honored with the Lucy Terry Prince Unsung Heroine Award presented by the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights Under Law and the ACLU Ira Glasser Racial Justice Fellowship.